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I've only recently discovered scratch brushes and I'm not sure if anyone else has used these. They look like this below, and I've found the steel ones work best. The brass ones leave material on fossils. Here is a photo of a specimen uncoated and unprepped: Here is the same specimen coated: And here is the final after cleaning out the aperture with a nail drill and cleaning the surface with the scratch brush: I use water in the process. I scratch the groves while the specimen is wet (to avoid dust and to clear out particles), and dip the brush in water to remove collected matrix/mud. I usually have a small water dish that is dark with matrix mud by the time I am done. This doesn't work on all matrix, but anything that is soft enough will scratch away. You have to try to dry these out when you are not using them, or they will be caked with rust the next time you use one. So maybe I taught something new here, maybe everyone is already using these and I'm late to the game, or maybe someone will tell me that I should be sandblasting these. I'll take all and any advice. Scale bars on the bottom two photos are 5 mm.

Here's a rock I found on my trip yesterday. The texture looks like just another scratch, but the shaping of it likes too precise and symmetrical to be a coincidence. Is it actually something or am I seeing things?